Of kindred nature was the Lar Familiaris or household god, whose worship formed the most important part of the religion of the home. So closely, indeed, was he connected with the idea of home that the word /ar itself came to signify "home." The real nature of the Lar (or plural, Lares) it is hard to discover, because of the slightness of Roman tradition in regard to all their gods. Not being fixed by tradition and lit erature, many of them changed greatly in the course of time. But the Lar Familiaris seems to be the presiding spirit or deity of the family. His are the family concerns; he goes with them, if they move. Sometimes it is one Lar (i. e., Lord); but more frequently the word is plural, especially in the later period. The Lares are present at the family meals and are themselves served with a portion of the meat and drjnk. Lihation and in cense are their approved portion, while on holi days their images were crowned with flowers and sometimes the sacrifice of a pig was offered them. Another conception gives us the Lares of the fam ily as its departed ancestors, themselves perform ing for it the same functions as did the Lar Familiaris.
Besides the Lares of individual families there were, closely related to them in general character, the Lares Conzpitales, worshiped in the country at every crossroad. They were the especial guar dians of the neighborhood immediately around. There were two in each place, and they were honored with shrines; their worship was merry and was shared in by the poorest and humblest ; slaves and their masters met there on equal terms.
Always reckoned with the Lares in the house hold worship were the Penates, or gods of the household goods that were stored away in the great store-chamber (cella penaria) of the house. The office of the Penates was to crown the house with blessings, to provide the daily bread. The hearth was their altar, shared with them by Vesta and Lares; and close by it stood their images—always two in number, as their name is always plural; the singular of the name does not occur. Indeed, the real name of these divinities, as the real name of the guardian genius of the Roman city was never spoken, for fear that an enemy might hear it and win away the favor of the protecting powers.
The Lares and Penates together were the guar dians of the fortunes of the individual family. But the great Roman Family, the state, had its Public Laces and Public Penates, as it had its Public Genius of the Roman People. The Public Lares provided for the stability of the state as a whole; their altar was the state hearth, and their priest was the Pontifex Maximus.
In the same way the Public Penates were the Genii who presided over the material goods of the state as a whole, the symbol of the unity and good fortune of that supreme household which included all Rome. To them the consuls, praetors
and dictators made sacrifice when they took their oath of office and again when they laid their office down.
In addition to these, we have as Gods of Earth all the rural deities, Silva us, "Forest-god"; Limpa (or Graecized, Lymplia), "Stream-god dess," while each forest had its own peculiar Sil vanus and each stream its own Limpa; also Ter minus, the "Boundary-god," and all the host of the gods of the indigitamenta, even to name whom with the signification of their names would ex ceed the limit of our article.
But there were also greater gods of earth than these, albeit even these greater ones were only functional deities, foo. The old Italians were an agricultural race. They had observed the double nature of the earth, the generating and the pro ducing powers. Accordingly the Gods of Earth appear as male and female: Saturnus, the God of sowing, and Ops, the Goddess of the rich harvest; Tellumo, the generating force, and Tellus, the conceiving, nursing power of the Earth; while Ceres, as her name implies (from the same root as erescere, "grow," and cre-are, "create"), was nothing more or less than the female productive function of Mother Earth. It was she, above all others, whom they worshiped for rich crops and increase of plant and animal wealth.
The sphere of the functional deities frequently became more extended. So Saturnus, who was originally god of sowing only, came to be also the god of agriculture in its widest sense. In this larger capacity lie became the mythical in ventor of agriculture, and dwelt among men, and his reign on earth was the happy golden age. So his festival, the Saturnalia, December 17-24, marked the renewal of nature, the feast of free dom and plenty—a return to the golden age, when all human beings were free and equal and happy. It was a season of rejoicing, of feasting, and of giving gifts. No wonder that out of it grew our Christmas celebrations—dolls, candles, nuts and all.
Ops, Ceres, Tellus, Terra Mater, Dea Dia (the bright goddess), Bona Dea (the good goddess), and many more are simply so many variations of the fostering Mother Earth.
(3) The Gods of the Underworld. As the Ro man religion had no bright Olympus as home of the ever-blessed gods, so also it had no gloomy Hades with its dark, dank ways. The poets' picture of the underworld, with its rivers, its Elysium and its Tartarus, is thoroughly Greek. But the Ro mans did r.ot fail to recognize the secret powers working beneath the earth, making the seed to grow and affording an abiding place to the souls of the dead.